1/27/12

TOG Year 1 Week 19-20

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We're still doing lots of reading.  We're reading one lesson from Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader each day.  Then she is reading either a chapter in a chapter book, or two library picture books each day.  Today we started my very most favorite series from my childhood - the Carolyn Haywood Betsy series.  We began "B is for Betsy."  I always enjoy reading these as some of their first chapter books.  She is halfway through lesson ten in Explode the Code book four.  We will be finishing this book soon, and I will be deciding what to do next.  I have a few options, but since I don't have the money in my budget for book 5, we won't be including that one for now.  In math, she is finishing up the +8/8+ facts.  I've been having her do the online drill at the Math-U-See site and incorporating all of the facts she has learned so far.  When she gets them all correct, she has done so with her fastest time being 100 seconds.  It's a little bit longer than their suggested time.  However, there is always some hunt and peck time with an online drill, so I'd really like to see her at around 80 seconds.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
The first two weeks of doing the D level history reading have gone okay I guess.  However, she is several days behind at this point.  I'm not sure what is going on with her, but I have made a big decision that should affect the older two princesses - hopefully for the better.  More on that in a minute.  History these two weeks has been dealing with the route to a divided kingdom.  We saw how the people demanded a king and got Saul, and then everything that Samuel warned them about came to fruition through David and Solomon.  After these two kings, the line of kings followed the LORD less and less, until the kingdoms became divided into two separate kingdoms.  In math, Princess S has made it to lesson 24.  She is beginning week 22 in her Tom Sawyer Fix-It book, and week 13 in her Caesar's English vocabulary.  She has begun lesson 13 in Latin, and will be taking a break once she hits lesson 17.  I had planned for her to do about half of the book this year.  She will continue to play the games at HeadventureLand once a week until she starts up on the second half.

 Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is finding a groove with her math review and is doing very well in Latin now that I have backed her up and given her a new schedule for each lesson.  I also made up some forms that I am having her fill out for each new word that forces her to write each possible ending - in both Latin and English - so that she can remember the endings better.  She is completing about a lesson every three days or so, so she is all the way up to lesson ten again.  She is taking a break from Magic Lens as she is up to the loop lessons.  We will be focusing on her vocabulary, Word Within the Word, until she reaches lesson twenty.



The big decision that I have made is that we are switching to a year round school schedule.  The two older princesses are just struggling to stay afloat.  They are very stressed out because they "think" they have so much more school work than everyone else.  Really, they have the same amount that all the other kids have - they just are not able to focus on their work and become discouraged when they don't see any "me" time in sight.  But, we aren't homeschooling just to do "school at home" - so we are going to do what is necessary for all of our sanities.  I have been working on a staggered schedule for all of our subjects.  This will mean that they have fewer assignments on any given day, hopefully allowing them to focus more on each subject rather than rushing to get everything done.  It will still require diligence to get their work done, but it will hopefully allow those who need more sleep to get it and those who need more "me" time to get that as well.  We will still be taking eight weeks of vacation from school; but they will be staggered throughout the year, rather than coming all together in the summer.  This new schedule will begin on February 6.

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